Tuesday, 29 May 2007

This month, two men – both freed last year after DNA evidence exonerated them of the crimes for which they'd been in prison – received drastically different news about how they might be compensated for those lost years.

Connecticut legislators voted to award $5 million to James Tillman to help him get his life back on track after 18 years behind bars for a rape he didn't commit.

The Florida Legislature, on the other hand, denied Alan Crotzer's request for $1.25 million and let a bill die that would have standardized a compensation system for victims of wrongful conviction.

"I felt so disappointed," says Mr. Crotzer, who served more than 24 years in a Florida prison until DNA evidence cleared him of rape and kidnapping charges. He's been working odd jobs that pay less than $300 a week since he got out. "The bottom line is, I don't think I could ever put a price on freedom…. But they've got to put a system in place. [This issue] isn't going away."

The cases are typical results of the patchwork of compensation laws in the US, say experts. Last month, the 200th person was exonerated due to DNA evidence, but the majority of those released have gotten nothing but an apology – and sometimes not even that.

"We are exonerating people who did not commit crimes, spent two decades in prison or time on death row, and when they get out, there are fewer reentry services for these people than for individuals who actually committed crimes," says Barry Scheck, codirector of the Innocence Project at Yeshiva University's Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, which is dedicated to exonerating the wrongfully convicted. "It's a measure of decency."

As DNA exonerations become more plentiful – and more publicized – some states are moving on the compensation front. Of the 200 men who have been exonerated based on DNA evidence, about 45 percent have received some sort of compensation, according to the Innocence Project, with amounts that range from $25,000 to $12.2 million.

Twenty-one states, along with the federal government and the District of Columbia, now have standardized compensation laws on the books – offering exonerees amounts ranging from $15,000 total to $50,000 per year of imprisonment. Thirteen states have introduced bills this year to either create or improve compensation for the wrongfully convicted. Some of those bills, like the one that gave Mr. Tillman $5 million, dealt only with individual prisoners, but other states are trying to standardize the compensation.

Crotzer – as much as he would have liked to see his own petition for compensation filled – favors the latter, as do most advocates of the wrongfully convicted.

"It's like I've got my hand out begging," he says of the process he went through. "It makes me feel bad."

Texas, where 13 men have been exonerated in Dallas County alone, is considering a package of bills that would, among other things, raise the compensation amount from $25,000 to $50,000 per year of incarceration.

Vermont – which hasn't yet had a prisoner exonerated by DNA evidence – has passed a comprehensive bill that would provide between $30,000 and $60,000 per year of incarceration as well as access to healthcare and reintegration services. It's currently awaiting the governor's signature.

That's a trend that advocates at the Innocence Project hope they see more of. They note that in addition to monetary compensation, most of the wrongfully convicted leave prison with few skills and desperately need access to education, mental-health services, medical care, and job training. Currently, most exonerees don't even have access to the same sort of services that parolees get, since they're not being paroled.

"In Florida, if you're a parolee they give you $100 and a bus ticket," says Michael Olenick, the Tallahassee attorney who represented Crotzer pro bono. "Al Crotzer got no bus ticket, and no $100."

He also didn't get access to counseling, and he says he's struggled with some things since his release: He still wants to turn his light off at 11:47 every night, for instance, and he keeps everything in his room neat enough to pass a cell inspection.

Crotzer recently married a woman with two children and has worked a series of low-skill jobs ranging from street cleaning to janitorial duties. He's in the process of moving to Tallahassee, where he has an offer to work as a dishwasher. But he's hoping for a job at a nearby sheriff's office working with at-risk youth, and he's trying to stay sanguine about it all. "I kept my self-respect by not becoming the monster they wanted me to be," he says of his years in prison.

Neither Mr. Olenick nor Crotzer can be sure why the request for $1.25 million failed, especially after the Florida House unanimously approved it. Senate leaders said they didn't have the money – a common reason that states cite in not providing compensation. In Crotzer's case, some also suggested that lawmakers didn't want to grant any more individual compensation bills, but instead wanted to pass a "global" bill that would address all cases. However, the three such bills that were introduced in past years didn't go anywhere.

Some believe Crotzer may also have been hurt by the fact that he was convicted of a beer store robbery when he was 18 – a fact that would have excluded him from compensation under one of the laws proposed in Florida.

Olenick says he'll keep fighting and will refile the claim for next year's session. "When you handle a case like Al's, he becomes locked in your heart," Olenick says. "Until he gets compensated, I'm not going to stop."

What states are offering

Here is a sampling of provisions in state legislation for prisoner compensation in cases of exoneration:

Wrongly convicted CT prisoner paid $5 million

HARTFORD, Connecticut (Reuters) - A man jailed for 18 years for a rape he did not commit was paid $5 million in compensation by the state of Connecticut.

James Tillman, now 45, was arrested in 1988 and sentenced to 45 years in prison a year later. He was exonerated in 2006 and released after a DNA test proved his innocence.

"No amount of money we give Mr. Tillman will erase this miscarriage of justice," Connecticut House of Representatives Speaker James Amann, a Democrat, said before lawmakers voted unanimously late on Wednesday to give him $5 million.

"We can, however, contribute to his healing, and help Mr. Tillman move on with his life," Amann said.

The case had racial overtones. The victim, who is white, identified Tillman, who is black, from a police line-up. Police never caught the real rapist. ...

HARTFORD, Connecticut (Reuters) - A man jailed for 18 years for a rape he did not commit was paid $5 million in compensation by the state of Connecticut.

James Tillman, now 45, was arrested in 1988 and sentenced to 45 years in prison a year later. He was exonerated in 2006 and released after a DNA test proved his innocence.

"No amount of money we give Mr. Tillman will erase this miscarriage of justice," Connecticut House of Representatives Speaker James Amann, a Democrat, said before lawmakers voted unanimously late on Wednesday to give him $5 million.

"We can, however, contribute to his healing, and help Mr. Tillman move on with his life," Amann said.

The case had racial overtones. The victim, who is white, identified Tillman, who is black, from a police line-up. Police never caught the real rapist. ...

(Hidden Innocence is a three-part series spotlighting individuals who havebeen wrongfully convicted, the reasons why and the impact on their lives.Today's installment profiles one of the leading causes of wrongfulconviction - suppression of evidence.)

Dan Bright stood in the middle of Laussat Street in the Ninth Ward andpointed to the spot where Murray Barnes was shot to death in 1995.

He walked across the street to Creola's Bar, now a flood-ravaged shell of abuilding.

"And this is where he ran inside and collapsed," Bright said.

It was late afternoon and the sky was gray with storm clouds.

Bright pointed to a one-story brick apartment building two blocks down thestreet and around the corner from Creola's. The windows and doors were gone.There was nothing inside except scattered bottles and cracked mud left overfrom the storm.

"That's where I was when the guy got shot," Bright said, and then he grewquiet. "If there had been a stop sign or a red light, something that wouldhave made me five minutes latey. "It's like walking someone through my worstnightmare."

An Orleans Parish jury convicted Bright, 26, of first-degree murder in 1996for slaying Barnes and sentenced him to death.

Eight years later, the Louisiana Supreme Court ordered Bright's release anda new trial because evidence suppressed at the time of trial included astatement from a confidential FBI informant positively identifying the realmurderer as Tracey Davis. The state declined to retry Bright.

"I'm angry because nothing is being done. No one is taking anyresponsibility for what they did to me," Bright said.

In April, DNA evidence helped exonerate the 200th person wrongfullyimprisoned in the United States. Louisiana has had nine DNA exonerations,the fourth-highest rate in the country, according to the Innocence Project,a New York-based organization dedicated to freeing wrongfully convictedpeople through DNA evidence.

Emily Maw, director of the New Orleans Innocence Project, said Louisiana'swrongful incarceration rate follows naturally with having the highestincarceration rate in the world and a broken indigent defense system.

Bright, however, is not counted among these numbers because he has neverbeen fully exonerated. When the state declined to retry the case, it robbedBright of the opportunity to have the charges dismissed in a new trial.Now he fears he will forever be labeled a murderer for a crime he didn'tcommit.

"First thing and last thing anyone sees in me is death row," Bright said.

Innocence disputes

Bright and many others are products of Harry Connick's reign as OrleansParish district attorney, Maw said.

In 1995, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled a defendant's constitutional rightsare violated if the suppression of evidence denies a person a fair trial.The landmark ruling arose from a trial overseen by Connick's office, inwhich the suppression of evidence was ruled egregious by the Supreme Court."Suppression of evidence like in Dan's case is a legacy in New Orleans," Mawsaid.

Connick was unavailable for comment.

Pete Adams, executive director of the Louisiana District AttorneysAssociation, said there are not that many innocent people behind bars."By claiming there are thousands of people who didn't do it in prison,that's cheapening the term 'exonerated' for the relatively few who might bewrongfully incarcerated,

" Adams said.

Bright's trial took two days and ended with a death sentence.

"Everything was in a fog," Bright said. "It was going too fast for somethingI didn't do."

Bright spent five years in Angola State Penitentiary on death row in acoffin-sized cell for 23 hours out of every day.

After the courts commuted his sentence to life, Bright was thrown into adormitory populated by 72 hardened felons.

In his first six months in general population, Bright saw a man tied to abed, doused in oil and burned alive, and another whipped with a sock full ofpadlocks.

And then they came after him.

One day Bright found himself in the shower threatened by a 6-foot-6,300-pound inmate.

He had two choices - run and risk being labeled "easy prey" or fight back."Violence breeds violence," Bright said. "You have to become what the restof them are in order for you to stay alive. If you don't protect yourself inAngola, every little fish in the sea is going to take a bite out of you. SoI whipped him with a bat."

Bright's self-defense earned two years in solitary confinement in a cell thesize of a bathroom with no television, radio, newspapers or human contact."There were 237 bricks in the walls, which were 10 paces apart," he said."Once you hit Angola you're as good as dead."

Unlikely alliance

While Bright was fighting for his life on the inside, he made a strange allyon the outside - Kathleen Hawk Norman, the forewoman of Bright's jury andone of the people responsible for sentencing him to death.

Norman said the responsibility of holding a man's life in her hands was aterrible burden but she believed they had convicted a guilty man at thetime. Four years later, when she heard attorneys had discovered a statementfrom an FBI agent identifying the real killer, she requested a meeting withJudge Dennis Waldron, who presided over Bright's trial.

"After the judge heard my testimony, he said either I was confused ormisguided and showed me the door," Norman said. "These guys wereperpetrating a fraud on the public and let me sentence an innocent man todeath."

Norman devoted the next four years to securing Bright's release withsuppressed evidence that could have proven his innocence at the originaltrial.

The Louisiana Supreme Court said the FBI failure to release the informant'sstatement "cannot be tolerated in a society that makes a fair and impartialtrial a cornerstone of our liberty from government misconduct."

Prosecutors also concealed the criminal history of Freddie Thompson, theonly witness to implicate Bright.

Of the first 130 DNA exonerations in the United States, 101 involved falseidentification, according to the Innocence Project.

Eight years after Bright entered Angola, the court ordered his release.

Losing faith

Bright has been a free man for more than two years but continues tostruggle. He can't get a loan to buy a house and can't land a steady job.The children he left behind to be raised by his parents think of him as abig brother instead of a father.

During his first year of freedom Bright said he filled a paper bag withreceipts to prove where he was at all times. If he went to a store he wouldstand in front of the security camera to make sure it recorded his face."They weren't going to get me again."

But because his charges were never dismissed, he remains a legal target.

"When the cops pull me over and run my license, 'death row' pops up," Brightsaid. "It's not that I'm innocent. It's that I got out on a technicality.One time the cops drew their guns on me, made me get out of the car, put thecuffs on me and brought me down to the police station all because death rowis still on there. I thought, 'Here we go again.'"

Bright and Norman remain close friends but she said the experience destroyedher faith in the justice system.

"Dan's sister Donna saw the guy who did the murder on the streets for yearsafter. She asked him how he could do this, let her brother be executed, andhe said, 'They don't have any evidence on him. No way he goes down.'"

Emily Maw, director of the New Orleans Innocence Project, opened the drawerof a filing cabinet in her second-floor office on Baronne Street.

"Look at all of them," Maw said as she opened a second drawer stuffed withletters from prisoners.

There were 2,500 letters, all asking for assistance in proving innocence."Most of these people probably aren't innocent. But maybe one in 15 is andthat's a big number," she said.

In its six-year history the New Orleans Innocence Project, a nonprofitdedicated to exonerating the wrongfully convicted, has secured the releaseof 12 innocent men from prison, including seven since Hurricane Katrina, whoserved more than 200 years total for crimes they didn't commit.

As of April, 200 wrongfully convicted people nationwide have been exoneratedthrough DNA evidence, including nine from Louisiana, giving the state thefourth-highest wrongful conviction rate in the country, according to theInnocence Project.

Maw said the state's poor performance is directly linked to its highincarceration rate.

In 2005, Louisiana led the nation with 797 inmates per 100,000 people, 62percent higher than the national average of 491, according to the U.S.Department of Justice.

Ineffective counsel and the suppression of evidence by the prosecution alsoplay a major role in wrongful convictions.

Kathleen Hawk Norman, chairwoman of the New Orleans Innocence Project, wasthe forewoman on a jury that sentenced Dan Bright to death for first-degreemurder.

During the trial, Norman said Bright's attorney didn't present a defense.But the jury took little notice.

"There is this weird circular logic that goes on in a jury room that isshameful to me now," Norman said. "If there is no defense presented, thatmust be because there is no defense. And if there is no defense, it must bebecause the guy is guilty. It didn't occur to me at the time that the systemdidn't work."

After Bright spent eight years in Angola State Penitentiary, the LouisianaSupreme Court ordered his release citing suppression of evidence by theprosecution.

Defense attorney Barry Scheck co-founded the New York-based InnocenceProject to exonerate the wrongfully incarcerated through DNA evidence. TheNew Orleans branch is one of the few in the country that takes on non-DNAcases such as Bright's.

No other group is eager to touch these cases because it is incredibly hardto prove innocence without "black-and-white" DNA evidence. Such cases cantake as long as eight years to resolve, Maw said.

But the New Orleans group has a secret weapon.

"All of our cases are screened by 50 self-trained inmate counselors inAngola," Maw said. "It's one of the reasons we've had such a great trackrecord. They are the best screeners we have and direct us straight to thegood non-DNA cases."

Pete Adams, executive director of the Louisiana District AttorneysAssociation, said not everyone freed from death row is innocent. Some arereleased due to legal errors or attorney wrongdoing during trial. Hecautions against overusing the term "exonerated.

"

"The overuse of the word 'exonerated' by people who are just blowing smokefurther delays justice for those people who really need the process," hesaid. "If someone really didn't do it, they shouldn't have to wait in linebehind 10,000 people just trying to waste the court's time."